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]]>http://action.citizenactionny.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=12235/feed0Break Albany’s Cycle of Corruptionhttp://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/1648/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=11238
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]]>http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/1648/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=11238/feed0Bad news for campaign reform, election fairnesshttps://fairelectionsny.org/posts/bad-news-for-campaign-reform-election-fairness/5468
https://fairelectionsny.org/posts/bad-news-for-campaign-reform-election-fairness/5468#respondWed, 09 Apr 2014 15:50:06 +0000http://fairelectionsny.org/?p=5468April 1 was a bad day for New York. After years of promising comprehensive campaign finance reform, including small-donor public financing, Gov. Andrew Cuomo let the Legislature pass a budget that removed it, and agreed to shut down his Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption — the single biggest tool he had to secure real […]

]]>April 1 was a bad day for New York. After years of promising comprehensive campaign finance reform, including small-donor public financing, Gov. Andrew Cuomo let the Legislature pass a budget that removed it, and agreed to shut down his Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption — the single biggest tool he had to secure real reform from the Legislature. But hey, that’s New York, right? So many promises of reform, so many excuses for why it can’t be done. And everything stays the same.

But the next day brought the sudden realization that though the status quo may be awful, things could get a whole lot worse. On April 2, the U.S. Supreme Court, in McCutcheon v. FEC, struck down overall limits on how much money a single donor can give to federal candidates and parties in one election cycle. The likely result for state politics is ever more special interest money and corruption flooding our political system, with average voters left even further behind.

Squeezed out of budget

The terrible irony is this was the year New York was supposed to fix our broken campaign finance system. After scores of arrests, Cuomo appointed a Moreland Commission to investigate corruption in government. Its conclusion was scathing: “New York’s campaign finance laws and practices enable special interests and wealthy individuals to flood the political process with enormous amounts of money,” corrupting the process to the point that average New Yorkers have almost no sway over policy decisions. Its primary recommendation to address this problem: comprehensive campaign finance reform, including a public financing system to elevate the voices of average voters and lower limits on direct contributions to candidates to slow the political spending arms race.

The governor put a version of this comprehensive reform in his budget, as did the Assembly. The Senate, led by a coalition of Republicans (who control just 29 of 63 seats) and breakaway independent Democrats, promised to consider it. But it was removed at the last minute. Not a single sky-high contribution limit was reduced, not a single contribution loophole closed. The only nod to public financing was a temporary “pilot” program for November’s comptroller’s race. The plan was so flawed that Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, at the urging of every good-government group in the state, opted out of the system.

Despite the Legislature’s utter failure to change the way money is raised in Albany, the governor claimed victory — and shut down the Moreland Commission. No more independent investigations into retroactive tax breaks for big donors or lobbyist instructions to clients to write $40,000 checks to move legislation.

Going to get worse

NYPIRG recently reported that 170 wealthy contributors, giving more than $50,000 each, donated more than half the money received by state political campaigns in 2013. In light of the Supreme Court’s continued evisceration of federal campaign finance law, this domination of our political system is about to get worse. Incumbents may be able to solicit millions of dollars, through leadership PACs, from each of these contributors. This makes Cuomo’s failure even more disheartening.

The governor had an opportunity to make New York a national model for how to protect the voice of average voters — those who can’t afford to buy political access. He had a proven model for reform, based on New York City’s successful public financing system, which has made it possible for candidates to finance their campaigns from the mass of their constituents rather than depending on a wealthy few. He had the support of a significant majority of New Yorkers including business leaders, the Moreland Commission and legislators.

Given the stakes, we need leaders who will make reform something more than a campaign slogan. For the near future, the wealthy, special interests and corporations will continue to drive public policy. And the next time a big corruption scandal rocks our state — which is inevitable — it’s on Cuomo and legislative leaders for failing to fix the system.

The good news is this year’s battle has shown exactly why we need real change. Voters, reform groups, ethics-minded legislators and everyone harmed by the current system — from small business owners to working families, from Harlem to Buffalo — will continue pushing Cuomo and their elected representatives to act.

The governor claims he’s going to keep working. But he’s given up two of his most valuable bargaining chips: the budget and Moreland. McCutcheon makes the need to enact real campaign finance reform even more urgent. Here’s hoping, for the sake of New York, the governor has a plan.

Lawrence Norden serves as deputy director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. Frederick A.O. Schwarz Jr. is chief counsel at the center.

]]>https://fairelectionsny.org/posts/bad-news-for-campaign-reform-election-fairness/5468/feed0DiNapoli: I won’t be “sacrificial lamb” on campaign finance reformhttps://fairelectionsny.org/posts/dinapoli-i-wont-be-sacrificial-lamb-on-campaign-finance-reform/5473
https://fairelectionsny.org/posts/dinapoli-i-wont-be-sacrificial-lamb-on-campaign-finance-reform/5473#respondTue, 08 Apr 2014 15:58:57 +0000http://fairelectionsny.org/?p=5473Apr 08, 2014 — New York state comptroller Tom DiNapoli says he won’t be participating in a new pilot public campaign finance program agreed to in the state budget, and government reform groups say, they don’t blame him. Saying he won’t be a “convenient sacrificial lamb”, DiNapoli says he won’t opt in to a test system […]

]]>Apr 08, 2014 — New York state comptroller Tom DiNapoli says he won’t be participating in a new pilot public campaign finance program agreed to in the state budget, and government reform groups say, they don’t blame him.

Saying he won’t be a “convenient sacrificial lamb”, DiNapoli says he won’t opt in to a test system for public campaign finance that applies only to his office, and would use money from the comptroller’s unclaimed funds to pay for it.

“At this point, I cannot participate in this pilot,” DiNapoli said in a statement, saying the program “is a poor excuse to avoid the real reforms.”

The government reform group Common Cause calls DiNapoli’s decision the “only rational and responsible choice,” and says the program was only designed to provide “political cover for Albany’s failure to enact real reform.”

The comptroller says he hopes the governor and the legislature will “reconsider,” and enact more comprehensive public campaign finance before the end of the legislative session.

Meanwhile, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s press secretary is accusing the comptroller of just not wanting to participate in public campaign financing. Spokesman Matt Wing says in a statement “we are surprised that the comptroller is opting out” and adds that if he has “specific concerns” the proposal can be modified.

“Unless, of course, he just doesn’t want to do public financing,” Wing said.

But some lawmakers and political observers said that leaders’ most potent weapon in this budget adopted late Monday night was their curve ball.

The leaders praised their budget for its tax breaks for Wall Street banks and corporations, its property tax rebates and record school aid. But some lawmakers and good-government advocates said the leaders also quietly weakened ethics and campaign finance enforcement in Albany, just days after the FBI agents hauled boxes of documents from a Queens assemblyman’s office in the latest in a string of federal probes.”You see it a lot in Albany,” said Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group. “The public rhetoric is completely out of sync with the private reality of government.”

‘Test case’ for campaigns

Leaders, however, argued the budget reflects the vagaries of democracy and the need to compromise with a Senate co-led by Republicans and Democrats and, an Assembly with an overwhelming Democratic majority. They announced what they called a landmark bipartisan agreement for a “test case” for public financing of campaigns to limit the influence of big-dollar donors in state government. But the longtime supporters of public campaign finance, including Common Cause, said the measure was crafted so poorly that it is worse than nothing and will doom the effort long term.

The measure applies only to the state comptroller’s race and only for this year — just seven months from statewide elections — which its supporters say can’t be implemented in time. Good-government advocates say the bill is so flawed no candidates should participate. State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said Monday he would not participate.

Meanwhile, the leaders abruptly ended the work of Cuomo’s anti-corruption commission. In its place, a new investigator and staff will be added to the Board of Elections with a tiebreaking vote on the board known for gridlock because of partisan votes. But that new system may months away.

Federal probes’ big reach

More than 30 state officials have been targeted in federal probes over the past eight years. Two weeks ago, Assemb. William Scarborough (D-Jamaica) said he was questioned by FBI agents for an hour about reimbursements for travel expenses. He wasn’t arrested.

“These issues are being raised in ways that seem to be designed to fail, to kill the issue,” said state Sen. Michael Gianaris (D-Queens) in an interview. “And that’s the misdirection: People championing the issue, but then attempting to achieve them in ways they know that is going to be unsuccessful.”

He argues the same tactic was used March 17, when the Dream Act was defeated. The act would provide college aid to immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children. After Cuomo, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate co-leader Jeff Klein who supported the act apparently agreed to omit the measure in private budget talks, the Dream Act bill was rushed to the Senate floor with little notice. The bill came up two votes short, with a potential “yes” vote absent.

In the meantime, public financing of campaigns and the Dream Act continue to be used by both parties to energize their base during this campaign fundraising season.

The leaders, however, say there is far less sinister reason for these actions: democracy.

“At the end of the day, I don’t think the votes exist in both houses to pass public [campaign] finance,” Cuomo said Tuesday. “And that’s a fundamental issue.”

“All the great governors in this state had one common denominator: They were about making progress,” Cuomo said. “They were all — FDR, Teddy Roosevelt, Rockefeller, Mario Cuomo — they would talk about compromise to advance the goal and inaction is the worst thing. . . . We have moved the state forward.”

“It’s the art of compromise,” said state Sen. David Valesky (D-Oneida), a member of the Independent Democratic Conference, which shares majority control of the chamber with Republicans.

Just how the leaders came up with the “public trust act” that ends the Moreland commission and creates public financing of campaigns was questioned on the Senate floor Monday. State Sen. Liz Krueger (D-Manhattan) said the measure is the result of a “snipe hunt,” a joke where insiders try to dupe the naive.

Gianaris asked Senate Finance chairman John DeFranciso (R-Syracuse) who came up with the idea in the closed-door negotiations between Cuomo and the three majority leaders.

“Those negotiations in many situations are private negotiations so no one is unfairly blamed for one position or another,” DeFrancisco said. “The level of trust to reach a result would be hurt.”

That drew an exasperated response from Gianaris: “The idea that letting the public be aware . . . would somehow hurt the cause is exactly the problem we’re having.”

]]>https://fairelectionsny.org/posts/ethics-campaign-finance-oversight-just-got-weaker-in-albany-say-observers/5470/feed0New York reacts to Cuomo’s broken promise on Fair Electionshttps://fairelectionsny.org/posts/5418/5418
https://fairelectionsny.org/posts/5418/5418#respondTue, 08 Apr 2014 13:00:50 +0000http://fairelectionsny.org/?p=5418New Yorkers are disappointed in Governor Cuomo and legislative leaders’ failure to fix Albany’s broken system of campaign financing, and they’re not alone. Media outlets across the state are reacting to Cuomo’s broken promise on Fair Elections. Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: State budget on time, but off base on ethics reforms Cuomo’s much-professed intention to […]

]]>New Yorkers are disappointed in Governor Cuomo and legislative leaders’ failure to fix Albany’s broken system of campaign financing, and they’re not alone. Media outlets across the state are reacting to Cuomo’s broken promise on Fair Elections.

Cuomo’s much-professed intention to clean up Albany has been perhaps his most notable first-term failure, and the new budget does nothing to change that. The governor’s proposed public-financing measure was watered down into a trial measure in this year’s state comptroller’s race. That’s too little and, given the election calendar, too late. Even more disappointing: Cuomo negotiated away the corruption-fighting Moreland Commission, whose scathing report last year on lawmaker indictments turned up the heat for much-needed ethics measures.

Cuomo announced that he would shut down the Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption. The panel had subpoena power (which Assembly and Senate leaders fought) and had launched several investigations that are ongoing. As Sen. Brad Hoylman, D-Manhattan, told The New York Times: “The fact that ethics reform was on the table as a bargaining chip suggests to me that we have much more work to do.”

Ironically, the state lawmakers’ ethics reform deal may actually erode public trust. It certainly did among the many good-government groups across the state that ridiculed it last week. Mr. Cuomo and the Legislature must go back to the table and hammer out a bill that inspires voters with confidence that New York’s elected officials are acting in the public’s interest rather than their own.

As discussion of the state’s $138 billion budget wends through its final course, Senate and Assembly leaders must take time to block action on a campaign finance reform plan that falls woefully short of any real reform goal. Good governance groups have called the plan “fatally flawed.” They are correct. There are so many flaws that it makes this attempt, if it can be called one, a laughingstock. The governor and Albany leaders can and should do better.

While Gov. Cuomo and state legislators are patting themselves on the back for approving an on-time budget, some of them should be kicking themselves in the backside for failing to include a comprehensive system of public campaign finance reform in the package.

But the budget deal’s big swing-and-a-miss is clearly how little it does to address what many New Yorkers consider state government’s most glaring failure: its awful ethical climate, visible in the arrest or forced resignation of several state legislators in recent months. To bring reform, the budget needed changes aimed at leveling the playing field between ordinary citizens and big money interests at the Capitol. Sadly, that was laid aside.

And, so, what has transpired at the 11th hour of this budget cycle will raise eyebrows and have consequences. Andrew Cuomo made campaign finance reform one of his centerpiece promises before taking office, just as he did reforming the legislative redistricting process. In both cases we now see he was merely paying lip service. They were expendable promises to satisfy the needs of the political moment.

Three years and three months into Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s first term in office, progressive reform advocates have figured out that he cares deeply about their issues — right up until the sort of deadline that Lyndon Johnson used to call “nut-cutting time.”

Instead, the governor and leaders came up with a plan that a cynic — or realist — might conclude was doomed to fail and take with it any real hopes of enacting campaign finance under the state’s current leadership.City and State: Sleight of Hand

“Perception is reality,” the late notorious Republican operative Lee Atwater would sneer. While this observation was not directed at summing up Albany, it is nonetheless an apt characterization of the political philosophy of our leaders in the state Capitol.

When it comes to good government reform in particular, what matters most to the four men in the room is not actually changing the culture of corruption in which they wallow, but merely appearing to do so—so they can pose as virtuous, and then go right back to rolling around in the mud.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) let his proposal for publicly financed statewide elections die after years of promises to restore the public trust. In a state that’s often a laboratory of democracy, the governor has agreed to what is little more than a clinical trial — a single comptroller’s race this year — that some experts claim is “designed to fail.”

The Working Families Party has called Albany’s failure to pass major campaign finance reform legislation, which would have provided public matching funds for small donations in all state races, a “lost opportunity to fix our broken political system.”

]]>The U.S. Supreme Court decision McCutcheon v. FEC, striking down some campaign donation limits is expected to have an effect in New York. Reform advocates say Gov. Andrew Cuomo and lawmakers missed a key chance this week to counter act the ruling.

Karen Scharff, with the Fair Elections Coalition, said the Supreme Court ruling means that anyone can now challenge New York’s current donation limits of $150,000 for individuals, and win their case. The only avenue left for an alternative to campaigns funded by wealthy donors, she said, is a voluntary publicly funded matching donor system.

She said state lawmakers, led by Cuomo, could have enacted a broad-based public campaign finance system as part of the budget, but in the end rejected the measure in favor of a plan limited to the state comptroller’s race.

“Unfortunately, Gov. Cuomo sided with the Supreme Court this week by choosing his CEO campaign contributors over voters,” Scharff says.

Cuomo said the votes simply weren’t there in the state Senate to enact broader campaign finance reforms.

Fair Elections is part of a group of progressive organizations that includes the Working Families Party, and Scharff said a “strong case” can be made for running a more left leaning candidate against Cuomo in the November elections. But she said there’s no decision yet.

]]>https://fairelectionsny.org/posts/advocates-say-cuomo-missed-chance-to-counteract-supreme-court-ruling/5436/feed0Lost opportunity on ethicshttps://fairelectionsny.org/posts/lost-opportunity-on-ethics/5425
https://fairelectionsny.org/posts/lost-opportunity-on-ethics/5425#respondFri, 04 Apr 2014 14:16:20 +0000http://fairelectionsny.org/?p=5425New Yorkers don’t trust their state legislators much, and with good reason: At least 30 have left office since 1999 because of transgressions ranging from inflating their expenses to sexual harassment to taking bribes. Countless other lawmakers have kept their seats despite illicit or unethical activity. And beyond legislators’ criminal behavior, their legal activities also […]

]]>New Yorkers don’t trust their state legislators much, and with good reason: At least 30 have left office since 1999 because of transgressions ranging from inflating their expenses to sexual harassment to taking bribes. Countless other lawmakers have kept their seats despite illicit or unethical activity.

And beyond legislators’ criminal behavior, their legal activities also sow distrust—for example, promoting bills or steering funding on behalf of special interests, campaign contributors and other political patrons.

So there was great public support when Gov. Andrew Cuomo formed a Moreland Commission to investigate the Legislature. Alas, last week he agreed to terminate the commission in exchange for lawmakers’ passage of ethics reforms that are not likely to make much of a difference.

Mr. Cuomo’s plan all along was to use the commission as a cudgel to compel legislators to act. It was a reasonable strategy, but the governor settled for too little. In fact, it is clear that the Moreland Commission scared lawmakers far more than the reform package to which they agreed. Commission investigators had dug their teeth into a plethora of questionable dealings. One of its cases, for example, involved payments by Maimonides Medical Center to Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind’s advertising company uncovered last year by Crain’s reporter Chris Bragg.

There is no guarantee that the cases being handed off to local prosecutors by the commission will be aggressively pursued. Many district attorneys in New York were elected with help from the very politicians targeted by these probes. Mr. Hikind, for one, delivered a key endorsement to the eventual winner of last year’s Brooklyn district attorney race.

The reforms did include some positive steps, such as making it illegal to offer or solicit a bribe (previously, the corrupt exchange actually had to be consummated). The state Board of Elections got new enforcement powers, and some penalties were stiffened. But the threat of punishment doesn’t deter politicians who don’t think they will be caught, which seems to be the prevailing sentiment in Albany. And the Board of Elections is a feckless body that, if history is any indication, will neuter its new enforcement counsel.

Ironically, the state lawmakers’ ethics reform deal may actually erode public trust. It certainly did among the many good-government groups across the state that ridiculed it last week. Mr. Cuomo and the Legislature must go back to the table and hammer out a bill that inspires voters with confidence that New York’s elected officials are acting in the public’s interest rather than their own.

]]>https://fairelectionsny.org/posts/lost-opportunity-on-ethics/5425/feed0OUR VIEW: State must not abandon campaign finance reformhttps://fairelectionsny.org/posts/our-view-state-must-not-abandon-campaign-finance-reform/5421
https://fairelectionsny.org/posts/our-view-state-must-not-abandon-campaign-finance-reform/5421#respondFri, 04 Apr 2014 14:09:24 +0000http://fairelectionsny.org/?p=5421While Gov. Cuomo and state legislators are patting themselves on the back for approving an on-time budget, some of them should be kicking themselves in the backside for failing to include a comprehensive system of public campaign finance reform in the package. Instead, lawmakers approved an “experimental” public campaign financing plan that affects only one […]

While Gov. Cuomo and state legislators are patting themselves on the back for approving an on-time budget, some of them should be kicking themselves in the backside for failing to include a comprehensive system of public campaign finance reform in the package.

Instead, lawmakers approved an “experimental” public campaign financing plan that affects only one office: state comptroller, for which Thomas DiNapoli is up for re-election. It’s little more than a token gesture that the state Board of Elections isn’t even equipped to administer on such short notice.

We’d urge DiNapoli and any other candidates for the job to opt out. The comptroller isn’t the problem. The corruption is rooted in the Legislature. Lawmakers have been reluctant for years to enact reform because the current system is too comfy. It lets incumbents raise huge sums of money in a variety of ways, not the least of which is through lobbyists looking for favors. This discourages challengers who could never afford to keep up.

This allows legislators to become entrenched and gain power that in too many cases has paved the way to corruption. In the past eight years alone, more than 30 public officials have been involved in scandals.

Assemblyman Anthony Brindisi, D-Utica, supported the public campaign finance reform package that has now been compromised by the comptroller-only plan. Sen. Joseph Griffo, R-Rome, didn’t. Griffo thinks a better way to deal with entrenchment and the corruption it might breed is to establish term limits, and he has sponsored legislation in the Senate to do just that. It would limit members to 12 years and the executive branch to eight.

We agree that Griffo’s plan would be a good step. But so would public financing of campaigns as originally presented by Gov. Cuomo, who disappointingly rolled over and settled for the compromise deal. Throwing the public a bone isn’t acceptable. Campaign finance reform must not be abandoned. Contact Griffo and other legislators and tell them so. As the Brennan Center for Justice said: “Unless the governor and legislature find a way to revive this promise in the coming weeks, all New Yorkers will live with the consequences of this failure.”

]]>https://fairelectionsny.org/posts/our-view-state-must-not-abandon-campaign-finance-reform/5421/feed0It’s Andrew Cuomo’s Fault!https://fairelectionsny.org/posts/its-andrew-cuomos-fault/5407
https://fairelectionsny.org/posts/its-andrew-cuomos-fault/5407#respondThu, 03 Apr 2014 15:12:38 +0000http://fairelectionsny.org/?p=5407This year was supposed to be different in New York. After failing to pass a comprehensive public financing system during the last legislative session, advocates for the measure believed this year, they would get the deed done, and New York state would match small-dollar donations with public funds, allowing campaigns with low-level donors to compete […]

]]>This year was supposed to be different in New York. After failing to pass a comprehensive public financing system during the last legislative session, advocates for the measure believed this year, they would get the deed done, and New York state would match small-dollar donations with public funds, allowing campaigns with low-level donors to compete with those whose supporters can write big checks. But on Tuesday, the effort to get public financing in New York had been dealt a major (if not a fatal) blow. Highlighting the stakes of such legislation, Wednesday morning the United States Supreme Court removed one of the last vestiges of the nation’s campaign finance system, banning caps on the total amount individuals can give to candidates in the McCutcheonv. FEC decision.

Now, the progressives who formed the Fair Elections Campaign have begun a new set of strategies to pass their public financing plan, largely by going to war with the most powerful Democrat in the state—Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Ostensibly, Cuomo, whose office did not respond to interview requests, is in favor of public financing. It was part of his campaign platform, and he’s mentioned it in every State of the State address. Last year, however, the legislature ended without passing any legislation on the issue, despite proposed plans being offered by the governor, Democratic lawmakers, and the Independent Democrats who currently share power with Republicans in the state Senate’s “coalition” model.

At the time, many advocates blamed Cuomo for his inaction. The New York governor, who has national ambitions, plays the angles. He does not always back incumbent Democrats, even in general elections, and benefits from the state senate’s unusual set up. Even though Democrats have the majority, a faction of rebel Democrats, the Independent Democrats, joined with the Republicans to rule the legislature, which means Cuomo has an easy pressure-release valve. He doesn’t receive any legislation that’s too far to the left of him. Despite the Republican hold on the Senate, the governor usually gets what he wants—his state was the first to pass a major piece of gun regulation after the Newtown shootings and he also rammed through a marriage equality measure. Cuomo can usually find Republican votes when he needs to, but public financing didn’t make the cut in 2013.

After the session ended, the Fair Elections Campaign got active in districts, including that of the head of the Independent Democrats, Senator Jeff Klein. Phonebanking and blockwalking helped raise awareness of the issue and showed lawmakers the reformers meant business. Among the coalition was the Working Families Party, a third party that endorses Democrats but pushes them left, and Friends of Democracy, a super PAC funded by Jonathan Soros, son of the famous philanthropist George.

Most importantly, this year advocates expected Cuomo to have more leverage. He included a public financing plan in his budget proposal. By tying the plan to a must-pass piece of legislation—which also had plenty of room for deals to placate Republicans—advocates thought they’d have more tools available to get a plan over the finish line. Furthermore, the governor had set up a commission, known as the Moreland Commission, to make recommendations about how to clean up the system. Advocates expected the governor would only agree to end the commission when lawmakers passed a public financing measure. With Democrats controlling the governor’s office and the state House, and a Democratic faction with major clout in the Senate, the Fair Elections campaign had a strong hand it seemed, and over the last two months, the New York legislature frequently seemed close to getting a deal. Senate Republicans, the only group that didn’t have explicit support for the measure, appeared open to negotiations.

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But, according to advocates, Cuomo was largely absent on the issue and when he did get involved, only complicated negotiations. He agreed to disband the Moreland Commission for support on some other anti-corruption measures, without a deal on public finance. On Tuesday night, the legislature passed a budget with a number of carve-outs for business, but only a paltry pilot program for public financing. Rather than some sort of matching system that could be implemented carefully and would apply to the governor and legislators, the pilot program is simply for one race, the 2014 state comptroller, and would have to be put together in a matter of weeks. Many in the Fair Elections coalition once supported such a pilot program, but not on such a short timeline and not after comprehensive reform seemed so close. “In obsessively driving for an on-time budget, Governor Cuomo and his office actively worked to both spoil and shut down negotiations that may have led to a more comprehensive result,” wrote David Donnelly, in a memo to supporters this week. Donnelly, in addition to his role as executive director of the pro-reform Public Campaign Action Fund, is also involved in Soros’ super PAC,

If advocates were looking for a silver-lining to the Supreme Court’s McCutcheondecision, it’s timing. Coming a day after the budget passed without a comprehensive plan, the decision helps illustrate how public financing has become one of the only options left for reformers, after years of the court chipping away at key campaign finance laws. “It’s the most promising thing that’s left,” says Ian Vandewalker, counsel in the Brennan Center for Justice’s Democracy Program, one of the leading legal groups pushing for campaign finance reform. According to Vandewalker, Wednesday’s decision leaves the door wide open for more cases that can knock down the few remaining limitations for donors. Because the court argued that the only reason Congress can regulate donation is to prevent bribery, any regulation that doesn’t explicitly tackle bribery is now an easy target for lawsuits. A voluntary public financing system, which would help small-donation campaigns compete, may soon begin to look more appealing across the country.

Blaming Cuomo for the loss—and in so doing, trying to show some muscle—has become the coalition’s main goal. “For those among us who want very tangible things to do and to ask others to do, the best thing that can be done is to blame the Governor for failing to achieve what would have been an historic victory,” read Donnelly’s memo.

Cuomo’s national ambitions put him in a tough position. While he obviously isn’t eager to take huge political risks for public financing, he does want to curry some favor with progressives. For instance, the Working Families Party often will put progressive Democratic candidates on their ballot line, rather than nominating independent third party candidates. Cuomo is eager to win big this November, and show his popularity. But without a public financing win, Karen Scharff, the head of Citizen Action New York, one of the lead groups in the Fair Election Campaign, says “it’s certainly a very open question as to whether he gets the line.” A recent report from the progressive New York Public Interest Research Group showed that 170 wealthy contributors, each of whom donated $50,000 or more to state politics, represented half of all the money campaigns received last year. Cuomo was the main recipient of those big checks.

But Cuomo won’t be the only official facing electoral pressure. Scharff says a session with no public financing will also show the failure of the power-sharing model in the senate, an arrangement from which, as noted, Cuomo benefits. While the Fair Elections Campaign will not engage in political activity together, Friends of Democracy has promised to fight against those who didn’t do enough to pass the measure. “Every single political actor in this mix, from the assembly to the senate to the governor know that their actions have consequences,” says Donnelly, who declined to name any targets and says he’s hoping the legislature will still find a way to pass public financing before the legislature adjourns.

Still, that possibility is looking increasingly remote, and as advocates look to new strategies for November and next year, support from the governor is no longer part of the plan. “We went into this fight with the governor, the state assembly leadership, senate Democrats and Independent Democrats all in favor,” says Scharff. That the campaign could not get public financing in the budget is “a real sign of either the governor’s weakness or his lack of commitment.”